Wilhelm Raabe

Wilbelm Raabe

Wilhelm Raabe

THE FICTION OF THE ALTERNATIVE COMMUNITY m

JEFFREY L. SAMMONS

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS Copyright © 1987 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey

ISBN 0-691-06709-0

Publication of this book has been aided by the Whitney Darrow Fund of Princeton University Press

This book has been composed in Linotron Janson

Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. Paperbacks, although satisfactory for personal collections, are not usually suitable for library rebinding

Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press Princeton, New Jersey CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii THE WORKS OF WILHELM RAABE IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OF PUBLICATION ix INTRODUCTION xi

PART I: IN SEARCH OF RAABE

CHAPTER I. Wolfenbiittel 3 CHAPTER 2. Stuttgart 19 CHAPTER 3. Braunschweig 28 CHAPTER 4. Raabe and His Public 36 CHAPTER 5. Pessimism 49 CHAPTER 6. The Case Against Raabe 59

PART II: THEMES

CHAPTER 7. Raabe and the Jews: The Case of The Hunger Pastor η 3 CHAPTER 8. Politics 88 CHAPTER 9. History 113 CHAPTER 10. Humor 133 CHAPTER II. Literature 151 CHAPTER 12. Narrators 170 CHAPTER 13. The Defective Family 189 CHAPTER 14. The Fiction of the Alternative Community 200

PART III: INTERPRETATIONS

CHAPTER 15. Irresolute Form: Abu Telfan 213 CHAPTER 16. Fate and Psychology: At the Sign of the Wild Man and Restless Guests 227 CHAPTER 17. Boundaries: ThePiedPiperofHamelin; Wunnigel; Of Old Proteus 249 CHAPTER 18. The Mill on the Sewer: Pfister's Mill and the Present Relevance of Past Literature 269 CHAPTER 19. Stuffcake Pro and Contra 283 CHAPTER 20. The Split Self: The Documents of the Birdsong 300

ν CONTENTS

CHAPTER 21. The Unclosed Circle: The Fragment Altershausen 316 IN LIEU OF A CONCLUSION 331

NOTES 339

BIBLIOGRAPHY 387

INDEX OF RAABE'S WORKS 411

INDEX OF NAMES 415

vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT is due to the American Council of Learned So cieties for a travel grant that enabled me to work in Wolfenbiittel and Braunschweig, and to the administrators of the Duke August Library in Wolfenbiittel, who arranged comfortable and agreeable quarters in that lovely town and otherwise showed me every hospitality. I am grateful to Dr. Manfred Garzmann and his associates in the Municipal Archive and Library of Braunschweig, who granted me permission to use unpublished materials in the Raabe Archive and assisted me in every way, and to Professor Josef Daum, currently president of the Raabe Society and head librarian of the Technical University of Braunschweig, for allowing me access to materials in his institution. A special debt in friendship is owed to Professor Hartmut Steinecke of the University of Paderborn, who sacrificed his valuable time to guide me through Raabe's Weser River landscape. Permission to re publish in revised form previously published or forthcoming sections of this book was graciously granted by Dr. Mark Gelber of the Ben- Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, editor of the forthcoming Festschrift for Sol Liptzin, for Chapter 7; by Dr. Hans-Jiirgen Schrader, co-editor of the Jahrbuch der Raabe-Gesellschafl, for Chapter 13; by Professor Bengt Algot S0rensen, editor of Orbis Litterarum, for Chapter 18; and by Dr. Hans-Werner Peter, co-editor and publisher of Wilhelm Raabe: Studien zu seinem Leben und Werk (Braunschweig: pp- Verlag, 1981), for Chapter 19. I must particularly express my lively and cordial gratitude to my colleague Professor Leo A. Lensing of Wesleyan University for his expert, observant, and thoughtful criti cisms generously provided at considerable expense of his time and effort. Finally, I am deeply obliged to my wife Christa for meticulous proofreading and such copyediting as was possible in the face of my obstinate infatuation with the sound of my own voice.

New Haven, Connecticut Fall 1985

THE WORKS OF WILHELM RAABE IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OF PUBLICATION WITH THE ENGLISH TITLES USED IN THIS BOOK

BERLIN AND WOLFENBUTTEL

Die Cbronik der Sperlingsgasse (novel; 1856) The Chronicle of Sparroiv Alley Der Weg zum Lachen (story; 1857) The Way to Laughter Ein Friihling (novel; 1857) One Springtime Der Student von Wittenberg (story; 1857) The Student of Wittenberg Weihnachtsgeister (story; 1858) Christmas Spirits Lorenz Scheibenhart (story; 1858) Lorenz Scheibenhart Einer aus der Menge (story; 1858) One of the Crowd Die alte Universitdt (story; 1858-59) The Old University Der Junker von Denow (novella; 1858-59) The Squire of Denow Die Kinder von Finkenrode (novel; 1859) The Children of Finkenrode Wer kann es wenden? (novella; 1859-60) Who Can Change It? Aus dem Lebensbuch des Schulmeisterleins Michel Haas (story; i860) Michel Haas Ein Geheimnts (story; rS6o) .1 Secret Der heilige Born (novel; 1861) The Holy Spring Die scbwarze Galeere (novella; 1861) The Black Galley Nach dem grofien Kriege (novel; 1861) After the Great War Auf dunkelm Grunde (story; 1861) On Dark Ground Unseres Herrgotts Kanzlei (novella; 1862) Our Lord God's Chancellory Das letzte Recht (novella; 1862) The Ultimate Justice Die Leute aus dem Walde (novel; 1862-63) Me People from the Forest

STUTTGART

Eine Grabrede aus dem Jahre i6op (story; 1863) A Funeral Eulogy of i6op Holunderbliite (story; 1863) Lilac Blossom Die Hamelschen Kinder (story; 1863) The Pied Piper of Hamelin Der Hungerpastor (novel; 1863-64) The Hunger Pastor Keltische Knochen (story; 1864-65) Celtic Bones Drei Federn (novel; 1865) Three Pens Else von der Tanne (novella; 1865) Elsa of the Fir Die Ganse von Biitzow (novella; 1866) The Geese of Biitzow Sankt Thomas (novella; 1866) St. Thomas Gedelocke (story; 1866) Gedelocke ix WORKS OF WILHELM RAABE Im Siegeskranze (novella; 1866) In the Victory Wreath Abu Telfan (novel; 1867) Abu Telfan Theklas Erbschaft (story; 1868) Thekla's Inheritance Der Schiidderump (novel; 1869-70) The Rumbledump Der Marsch nach Hause (novel; 1870) The Homeward March Des Reiches Krone (novella; 1870) The Crown of the Empire

BRAUNSCHWEIG

Der Draumling (novella; 1872) The Draumling Swamp Christoph Pechlin (novel; 1873) Christoph Pechlin Deutscher Mondschein (story; 1873) German Moonshine Meister Autor (novel; 1873, imprint 1874) Master Author Zum wilden Mann (novella; 1874) At the Sign of the Wild Man Eulenpfingsten (novella; 1874-75) Owls' Pentecost Frau Salome (novella; 1875) Madame Salome Hdxter und Corvey (novella; 1875) Hoxter and Corvey Vom alten Proteus (novel; 1875-76) Of Old Proteus 1 tor acker (novel; 1876) I lor acker Die Innerste (novella; 1876) The Innerste Wunnigel (novel; 1877-78) Wunmgel Deutscher A del (novel; 1878-79) German Nobility Auf dem Altenteil (story; 1878) In Retirement Alte Nester (novel; 1879) Old Nests Das Horn von Wanza (novella; 1880) The Horn of Wanza Fabian und Sebastian (novel; 1881-82) Fabian and Sebastian Prinzessin Fisch (novel; 1882-83) Princess Fish Villa Schonow (novel; 1884) Villa Schonow Ein Besuch (story; 1884) A Visit Pfisters Miihle (novella; 1884) Pfister's Mill Unruhige Gdste (novel; 1885) Restless Guests Im alten Eisen (novel; 1887) On the Scrap-iron Das Odfeld (novel; 1888) The Odin Field Der Lar (novel; 1889) The Lar Stopfkuchen (novel; 1891) Stuffcake Gutmanns Reisen (novel; 1892) Gutmann's Travels Kloster Lugau (novella; 1894) Cloister Lugau Die Akten des Vogelsangs (novel; 1896) The Documents of the Birdsong llastenbeck (novel; 1899) Hastenbeck Altershausen (novel fragment; written 1899-1902, posthumously published 1911) Altershausen Dergute Tag (story; written 1875, posthumously published 1912) The Good Day

X INTRODUCTION

THE ENTERPRISE pursued in these pages is grounded in a conviction that Wilhelm Raabe (1831-1910) was the major nineteenth-century novelist in the German language between Goethe and Fontane, and a writer deserving of an honorable place in the canon of European lit erature. This claim may bewilder different readers in different ways, depending upon their level of knowledge. Those generally familiar with nineteenth-century European literature may never have heard of Raabe; he has been little translated' and has not thus far been accorded much standing in comparative literary history. Anyone who looks him up in a reference work may wonder how he comes to be placed between Goethe and Fontane, for Raabe was twelve years younger than Fontane and outlived him by the same number of years. But, as a novelist, Fontane was one of the most remarkable late bloomers in the history of literature. He published his first novel in 1878 at the age of fifty- nine; by that time, Raabe had published fifty-one novels and stories, fully three-quarters of his life's work. Raabe, as I shall try to show, was distinctly a German Victorian writer; the older Fontane belongs to a more recent phase in literary history. The idea that we may speak of a Victorian age in German literature was introduced two decades ago by Norbert Fuerst; he did not, however, address Raabe, who could have supplied his most persuasive example.2 Others may protest the claim that he was the preeminent German- language novelist of his time; what of the canonized achievements, such as Gottfried Keller's Dergriine Heinrich (Green Henry) or Adalbert Stifter's Der Nachsommer (Indian Summer)} Perhaps no single one of Raabe's novels matches these in accomplishment—though this is a concession I would not make with alacrity. But, as far as the novel is concerned, Keller and Stifter were one-book writers; their other ef forts in the genre remained fragments or were otherwise failures. Raabe wrote, at a minimum, a dozen novels of significant rank. Of no other German-language novelist of the time can this be said.3 Finally, by no means all of those to whom Raabe's name does mean something are persuaded of his stature. In large part this is owing to the peculiar and damaging history of Raabe's reputation. But I cannot be deterred by the skepticism of others, past and present. For Wilhelm Raabe is a discovery I have made for myself. Needless to say, he was there all the time. But, although much of my training and most of my work has been in nineteenth-century INTRODUCTION

German literature, he might as well not have been as far as I was concerned. My revered mentor, Heinrich Henel, was one of those who did not hold him in very high regard, and I cannot clearly recall ever hearing his name during my studies. Over the years, the name came slowly over the horizon, one in that cloud of little-read novelists hovering on the periphery of the traditional German literary canon. I came upon him almost serendipitously, during the evolution of my shocking discovery that the widely believed dominance of the nineteenth-century German novel by the form of the Bildungsroman is a legend.4 It was in my search for the elusive Bildungsroman and then in a determination to examine the novels which, in contrast to the claims of literary history, really did exist, that I began to read Raabe, know ing little and expecting less. Even though I did not begin with the works now judged to be his finest, it is difficult to describe my aston ishment upon reading him for the first time. What I was reading re sembled nothing I had ever seen before in German letters of the whole century; I was particularly struck by Raabe's narrative ingenuity and originality of tone. Someone once remarked of Joseph Conrad that, as soon as one began to read him, one knew that one was in good hands. I take this to mean that the ultimate judgment on the author's literary rank may still be reserved, but right away one recognizes competence, substance, and artistic integrity. This was my experience within a few dozen pages of Raabe. From that beginning, several years of investi gation brought me to the judgment with which I began this introduc tion. Those unacquainted with the peculiarities of German literary study may find all this hard to credit. Literary history, plowed and replowed as it has been, does not, as a rule, unearth neglected masterpieces by unrecognized geniuses. To put forward the kind of claim I am assert ing may appear to carry the amiable eccentricity of the academic a bit too far. But German literary history suffers from the same disastrous discontinuity that has disrupted German history in general. Agonizing reappraisal has been the order of the day for a generation now, espe cially in regard to the traditional canon, which was formed under particularly intense ideological pressures in the Wilhelminian era. No where, in my judgment, is this need more evident than in the unsat isfactory state of the study of the novel, of which the Bildungsroman hoax is but a symptom. If the world at large believes that the Germans in the nineteenth century were unable to write novels as other nations did, with the exception of a half-dozen rather eccentric examples, it is because the Germans arranged the canon to give that impression. Raabe's insecure position in the canon and his capture by what was in

Xll INTRODUCTION many ways an unliterary cult constitute one of the more outlandish chapters in the reception history of German literature. I am not unmindful that the elan of discovery in a case like this may exaggerate its importance and distort judgment. But I am com forted by the clear evidence that I am by no means alone. The recon sideration of Raabe has been one of the most exciting developments in the study of German literature, especially during the last fifteen years or so. It is not without significance that some of the most worthwhile interpretive work is to be found in often unpublished British and, latterly, American dissertations. Striking about many of them—to which I owe a considerable debt—is not only their quality but their vivacity. They do not read like labored, required exercises, but reflect the fascination that reading Raabe and attempting to solve his many puzzles can afford. The much bruited malaise in the literary disci plines may in large part derive from a subliminal, naturally unarticu- lated feeling that every conceivable interpretive task has been done over and over, with ever more refined nuances that hardly anyone can stand or even understand anymore. However this may be, staleness is not a problem with Raabe; everything has had to be done afresh. The enthusiasm of discovery is clearly not peculiar to me, but has struck many others with equal force. The juxtaposition of two recent examples from opposite ends of the scale of academic prestige may illustrate this unusual sea change. One is a 1981 lecture on Raabe's late novel, The Documents of the Birdsong, by Wilhelm Emrich, one of the most powerful intellects among con temporary German literary scholars, renowned for his profound stud ies of Kafka and of the symbolism of the second part of Faust.5 If I am not mistaken, this positive, enthusiastic lecture was the product of quite recent experience; in any case, Emrich had never before ad dressed himself to Raabe in his substantial career. The other example is a touching little piece that appeared around the same time in a left- wing pedagogical journal.6 It is the confession of a young school teacher, whose training in the current academic atmosphere had left him with little impetus to read literature, as opposed to literary the ory, who—again, serendipitously—came across Raabe's historical no vella Hoxter and Corvey and found himself, to his surprise, reading with pleasure and absorption. That reading literature might be pleasurable is apparently something that had never before occurred to him as a student and teacher of literature. In the contentious and sometimes confrontational cultural atmosphere of Germany today, Raabe's dem onstrated capacity both to excite and to beguile begins to be increas ingly persuasive.

Xlll INTRODUCTION

It might be mentioned in passing that Raabe, though most definitely a "bourgeois" writer, has been relatively immune from the hostile crit icism of the left. On a couple of occasions he has been the object of exercises in ideological criticism familiar on the German academic left, but these seem not to have been very convincing to others; rather, leftists have endeavored in various ways to regard Raabe positively, reserving their ire for past admirers and disciples. Indeed, it seems to me that the acerbity not infrequently encountered in German cultural discourse has been largely absent from the lively modern discussion of Raabe, though there was plenty of it in the past. It would be un realistic to suppose that his profoundly humane spirit has radiated a gentling effect over the critical community; but something has been radiating: admiration, respect, the excitement of aesthetic discovery— perhaps, though one trembles to suggest it, the pleasure of reading. To be sure, none of the foregoing proves the standing I claim for Raabe. Fashions come and go, in criticism as in literature. Some years ago we experienced the flourishing of Hermann Hesse, discovered by legions of enthusiastic readers and validated by dozens of vigorous critics, but none of that, in my opinion at any rate, made of him a major writer. A skeptical cultural critic might detect motives for the Raabe renaissance as worrisome as those I imagined I saw in the Hesse boom. I do not intend to press the evaluative issue in what follows, though I shall address it from time to time. Rather I hope merely to make a contribution to the ongoing process of understanding Raabe's fiction. Much of the finest modern work on him has consisted of de tailed interpretation of texts and fictional devices; it is my ambition to draw on these achievements as judiciously as I am able in order to widen the perspective to a more comprehensive, though certainly not exhaustive, account of the oeuvre as a whole. Among the manifold difficulties that confront me in pursuing this purpose, two require particular mention. The newness of the Raabe topic, which generates high spirits in the scholarly endeavor, has an other side. While certain general lineaments of consensus have been developing, the topic lacks the solid base of fundamental insight that normally accrues to the study of past literature. We are still working with basics and are perhaps not yet in a position to build the super structure of fine nuance characteristic of the academic criticism of long reputable literary artists. Thus a certain amount of groping for the right perspective may be evident in what follows. At the same time, I want to express once and for all my obligations to my predecessors and contemporaries in this endeavor. While I am anxious to give credit where it is due, if I were to discharge every debt this study would be